Rock Chick Reckoning(28)

Ah, so it was this game now.

My lips made a soft noise that sounded like, “poof”.

Then I said, “That’s what they al say.”

“It wasn’t.”

“So, it wasn’t me, it was you?”

“No, it was the men who watched you onstage, the ones I’d see gig to gig. Drinkin’ beer and adjusting their crotches and likely goin’ home and jackin’ off, thinking of you singing

‘Black Velvet’.”

“Right.” I sounded sarcastic because I meant to.

His face got closer. “Yeah. That’s right. Listen to me, Stel a, it wasn’t about you. I’m not the kind of man who wants other men jackin’ off to his woman. I’m also not the kind of man who wants to share her with four other guys.” My body went solid and my hands pressed against his chest. “I never cheated on you!”

“Yeah you did, every time you let me take a cal from Buzz or Hugo or Pong or Leo.”

Okay. Shit. Wel .

Um.

I had nothing to say to that because, in a weird way, he wasn’t wrong.

He felt my body relax, he knew he scored a point and he took advantage, pressing closer, his face dipping lower, coming to a stop an inch from mine.

“I knew when I got into it with you that I wouldn’t be the center of your universe. I was fine with that. I just didn’t know I’d be a satel ite.”

At his words, my body did an involuntary jerk.

I hated it that he thought that. I shouldn’t hate it, since I was over him, but I did.

“You weren’t a satel ite,” I whispered.

“I know that now, after hearin’ what you said in the kitchen. I didn’t know it then.” His arms came from around me and his hands went to either side of my neck, his thumbs pressing into the undersides of my jaw to tilt my head further back to look at him. “Kitten,” he said softly,

“you should have told me.”

Hang on a second here.

Was this happening?

And if it was, how was this happening? Why was this happening?

He broke up with me!

“You said I was needy,” I accused on a toss of my hair which, for your information, did nothing to dislodge his hands.

“I said your band was needy,” he contradicted.

“You did not,” I contradicted right back.

“I did. You heard it the way you wanted to hear it. I hate to break this to you but Stel a Gunn is not the Blue Moon Gypsies. There’s you and there’s the band. Babe, you gotta find where one ends and the other begins.” He was right. I knew he was right. I’d been worried about that for a long time.

But I wasn’t going to tel him that.

“You have no right to speak to me this way,” I snapped.